Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Catholic Mission)

The Mission Portfolio seeks to enrich the university's academic and communal life by drawing on the Catholic intellectual tradition and promoting dialogue between Christian faith and contemporary culture.

Rev Dr Gleeson works closely with the university’s senior leaders to ensure that ACU’s educational, research and engagement objectives are shaped by its Catholic heritage, values and intellectual tradition. He leads a team focused on promoting a sense of shared mission among staff and students, strengthening ties between the university and the Church and its founding religious institutes and engaging with the broader Catholic community.

Rev Dr Gleeson has extensive experience in Catholic education and Church administration. His scholarly expertise is in the areas of philosophy and Christian ethics, and he is committed to promoting the relationship between religious faith and human reason through a culture of intellectual inquiry, respectful debate, ethical discernment and social responsibility.

He joined ACU in 2025 as Senior Advisor, Catholic Identity and Mission and was Interim Pro Vice-Chancellor (Catholic Mission) before his appointment as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Catholic Mission).

As a priest of the Archdiocese of Sydney he served as Vicar General from 2015-2024. Most of his priestly ministry was spent teaching philosophy and Christian Ethics at the Catholic Institute of Sydney as a Professor Ordinarius in the Ecclesiastical Faculty, along with leadership roles including Vice President and Deputy Chair, Academic Board, Sydney College of Divinity.

He is a board member of CatholicCare Sydney and has served on a number of committees including: Board of Sydney Catholic Schools (Chair); St Johns College, University of Sydney (Fellow and Council Member); Sisters of Charity Health Service (Director); Garvan Institute of Medical Research (Director); Australian Catholic University Bioethics Centre (later The Plunkett Centre) (Inaugural Director); and the Bioethics Consultative Committee, St Vincent’s Hospital (Member).

He holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) and a Master of Arts from the University of Cambridge.